10 November 2008

Pride & Glory

Short on Both

Well, when it comes to Pride & Glory, I should have known it was going to be bad when I first saw a preview for it over a year maybe a year and a half ago. This is one of those movies that I am sure sounded good on paper, but just became more ridiculous as the filming went on. From the director of Miracle and the writer of Narc and Smokin’ Aces, I did expect more, a lot more.

The movie opens with a football game between the police department and fire department. It reminded me of the hockey games in Rescue Me. We first meet Colin Farrell’s Jimmy Egan in football gear rallying his troops to make the defensive stop to save the game. We are also introduced to Edward Norton’s Ray Tierney and his older brother Francis, Jr., played by Noah Emmerich. From here, we go right into the story of cops killed in the line of duty. The Chief of Police is Jon Voight as Francis Tierney, Sr. He talks Ray into heading up a task force to look into the circumstances of the cop killings.

There is really not much more to say. If you have seen the preview, then you know what happens. Jimmy Egan is a dirty cop and Ray is a clean cop. They have a showdown while all the other dirty cops are being taken care of in various ways. There are multiple subplots that just did not need to be there. Ray is getting a divorce. Does that matter? No. Francis, Jr.’s wife is dying of cancer. Does that ever come into play? No. Francis, Sr. is an alcoholic. Again, does that make a lick of difference in the movie? No. This movie was 130 minutes and every bit of 50 minutes too long.

The climax was a let down. There is a good fist fight between Jimmy and Ray, but that is about it. The direction was bad. All these great actors, and the director was unable to get anything out of any of them. This reminded me a lot of James Grey and his two movies The Yards and We Own the Night. There is a lot of potential that is just never tapped or played out. Verdict: I do not advise wasting the over two hours it would take to watch this atrocious waste of talent. There are plenty movies that have done the dirty cop theme better.

Who is the Hairy Man?

I recently got a position with insideSTL.com as a movie critic. I will be posting on there once a week and here the rest of the time. I plan to post links between the sites to increase cross traffic. That means I should post 1 new review a week, at least!